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Some evidence for a Dark Age trading site at Bantham, near Thurlestone, South Devon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Aileen Fox
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Extract

Bantham is a small hamlet in the parish of Thurlestone, South Devon, five miles west of the market town of Kingsbridge. During the summer of 1953, to celebrate the Coronation, the people of Bantham arranged an exhibition of material illustrating their village history. The organizer, Mrs. Clare Fox, asked me to help in identifying some ‘Roman’ pottery and other objects that had been collected from the sand-dunes at the mouth of the river Avon near by, by Mr. H. L. Jenkins of Clanacombe in the late nineteenth century. The finds had been presented subsequently to the Torquay Natural History Society's Museum by Mrs. M. Radcliffe, his daughter-in-law, and were lent by the museum for the Bantham exhibition. The finds were found to include fragments of imported amphorae of Dark Age date, similar to those found at Garranes and Tintage and therefore to merit wider recognition. I am much indebted to Mrs. Fox for guidance to the site and for the history of the discoveries; to the Council and Curator (Mr. A. G. Madden) of the Torquay Museum for the loan of the objects; to Miss Theo Brown for their illustration; to my husband Cyril Fox for help with the map (fig. 5); and to Mr. G. C. Dunning for his description and drawing of the medieval finds.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 35 , Issue 1-2 , April 1955 , pp. 55 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1955

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References

page 55 note 1 Ó Ríordáin, S. P., Proc. R. I. Acad. xlvii, C2, p. 77Google Scholar: quoted as Garranes.

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page 61 note 1 Garranes, fig. 19 and p. 127.

page 61 note 2 Ibid., fig. 23, p. 132.

page 61 note 3 A monograph on the fine red and the cross-impressed wares from Tintagel by Mr. C. A. R. Radford is due to appear in the volume of studies presented to E. T. Leeds, to be published by Methuen in 1955.

page 61 note 4 Garranes, p. 145.

page 61 note 5 Ibid., p. 86.

page 62 note 1 Garranes, footnote, p. 134.

page 62 note 2 Antiq. Journ. 1935, p. 415.

page 62 note 3 I am much indebted to Mr. Charles Thomas for information and for an opportunity to compare the sherds. See also Interim Report, in Proc. W. Cornwall F.C. (1954), 59; Classes B. II – IV (p. 68) are represented at Bantham.

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